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I’m sure you would have seen online and across social media, today is International Women’s Day.

This is not a topic we would traditionally delve into on the Spinnup blog, but for today, we want to change that. With the recent rise of movements like #MeToo and Time’s Up along with the spotlight that is being thrown on diversity in the music and entertainment industries, we thought we’d open our door a little wider and give you a peek inside the organisation behind Spinnup.

I am Nina Usher, a woman in the music industry, a senior executive for a tech platform, the head of a start-up – in short, Spinnup’s General Manager.

That was in no way meant to sound boastful, although I am very proud of my achievements. It will come as no surprise to you that the music, tech and start-up industries are traditionally male driven, and the thing I am most proud of is that Spinnup says a huge NO to stereotypes in every way.

Spinnup is run by a small team, based in local Universal Music offices in Stockholm, London, Berlin, Paris, Copenhagen and Oslo.

Was this by design? No. We firmly believe in hiring the best candidate for a role and always maintain an open mind when interviewing staff.
Are we proud of this percentage and adamant to continue encouraging, guiding and mentoring the next generation of female musicians and executives in the music industry?

HELL. YES.

We’re well aware that bucking this trend so violently is not common, which is why I felt the need to highlight it today.

Outside of the direct Spinnup team we have played a part in the journey and have supported the development of female artists such as Lova, Adrijana and MOODY, who were all signed to Universal Music labels.

We are fortunate to work alongside a group of brilliant, supportive and respectful men at Spinnup, I value everyone on the team in exactly the same way. But, today is about throwing a spotlight on the wider issue, by commemorating our achievements, celebrating our progress, and championing the gutsy girls who run the world.

Today is about women, so who better to soundtrack #InternationalWomensDay than the women of Spinnup? Head to our Spinnup, Girl Powered playlist on Spotify to get your daily dose of girl power, or hit play below.

2018 has begun with a bang for the team at Spinnup France, who have gotten their first artist signing – and the 35th signing for Spinnup!

Congratulations to Nelick, a local urban artist who was recommended to use Spinnup by his manager, Aly, a Scout in the French team!

He released his first Spinnup track, Range Rover, in late 2017, followed by 10 décembre, which was released, well, on the 10th of December. Nelick’s style of rap can be decided as very laid back, with soft melodies and chilled out beats that his voice flows lazily overtop of.

Not wasting any time, Nelick has already dropped his major label debut with his EP KiwiBunnyTape, released on Caroline on Friday January 19. With his February 1st release party already at capacity, we know Nelick is definitely an artist to keep an eye on!

WHO IS NELICK?

Old school versus new school, the opposition is as old as rap itself.

Mixing the boom-bap of the nineties against modern flows and instruments – there is a generation of rappers who find their niche by expertly combining the two, a generation that Nelick flies the flag for.

Having been very active in 2017, with four projects to his name, Nelick saw his star climb online last year. Without much media coverage, this self-produced artist grew his following on social media via not only his music by distinct visual style. The video for “OCEAN 2077” with its off-the-wall imagery and distinct 90’s treatment has earned over 1.7 million views on YouTube!

What impresses us about Nelick’s rap is not just his rhyming talent, but also the relaxed vibe he conveys, like the feeling of summer, injecting a sense of love and fun into his tracks, complete his characteristic cheeky nature. From the first taste of his mixtape, the KiwiBunnyTape, you can feel it has a sweetness to it, not unlike the feeing you get from the video of his 2017 single ‘Range Rover’.

Our new signing does not always work alone, accompanied by talented young artists like himself, Nelick’s other project is PALASS, a duo formed with Lord Esperanza. Together they released the Acid Rose Garden mixtape in 2016.

Having quickly seduced hip hop fans all over France, we are sure it won’t take long for his music to cross country borders and reach even more people around the world. I know that we’ll be waiting eagerly to see what he does next!

For the second year in a row our Danish team have run an amazing competition that gives independent artists the chance to win an invaluable ‘Spinnup Scholarship’, which includes prize money and other industry support. This year’s scholarship grantee is urban-electro singer-songwriter Kihla! The Jury who picked her out consisted of A&Rs from Universal Music, Spinnup Scouts, and reps from Spotify and Glass Management. Together they had no doubt that the scholarship belonged to Kihla:

“Kihla is a one woman army who creates all her music by herself – she has the full package with a strong visual image on the side of her music. Her sound is fully defined and her music is pure coolness”, says Christian Skjølstrup, the manager for Danish music sensation Gulddreng, and part of the jury who selected Kihla for the scholarship.

The story of Kihla starts 15 years ago when she, as a 5 year old, got a mini piano from a thrift store. Later, she upgraded to a keyboard and despite being the only musician in her family, Micheal Jackson and Whitney Houston were always playing on the stereo in her home. Artists who Kihla notes as some of her first big inspirations.

Now she makes her own music, which she describes it as a mix of pop, R&B and futuristic jazz. All her music is produced on Garageband on an iPad – but even though Kihla’s equipment is simple her dreams are anything but:

“I haven’t seen that many artists who look like me and make the same type of music in Denmark, so I’m exited to see how people receive my tracks. My hope is of course to become one of the cool female artists who manages to get a platform on the Danish market, but first and foremost I’m really excited to now have the funding to make even more music.”

The scholarship Kihla receives includes 20.000 dkk and a performance at one of the biggest music industry festivals in Denmark, Spot Festival. After revealing her as the winner, the Spinnup Denmark team surprised Kihla with her own digital billboard in the centre of Copenhagen, and caught it all on video! We are so excited to follow Kihla’s journey and music from the iPad, to the music studio, to the stage in front of a huge audience at Spot Festival in 2018.

We are so happy to announce our 34th artist signing to Universal Music, Denmark’s BEKO!

At just 17 years old – born and raised in Taastrup, Denmark, Beko is our youngest signing to date. He was discovered through Spinnup by a Scout via his certified hit ‘Adriano‘, which has gained over 1,000,000 streams organically on Youtube and Spotify combined.

BEKO’s style could best be described as urban, with strong influences from his Turkish roots – and like himself – a balanced mix of toughness and sensitivity. The young artist has a keen understanding and ability to combine the more sentimental and personal aspects of his life with his tougher ‘street’ side in both sound and lyrics. He is a man of contrasts who dares to publicly explore feelings and thoughts about himself and his surroundings.

With Christmas just around the corner we wanted to make sure all of our wonderful artists knew about the the best present we could think of to give, even more stores to sell and stream your music on!

We announced a little while ago that we would be going off the grid for a day to make some exciting new upgrades to the Spinnup platform and the services we offer. We appreciate your patience while our team of tech gurus worked their magic (i.e. code) to make this happen, and a few keen-eyed users would have already noticed a few new partner logos on our homepage.

So now we would like to officially annouced that we now offer more distributors than ever before – we’re talking from 8 partner stores to 45!!!

Ever wanted someone to hear your music and be able to whip out their phone to quickly find who the artist is that makes those heavenly sounds? Now they can with Shazam. How would you like your fans to be listening to the world’s biggest internet radio and hear your song play next? Now they can with Pandora. The legions of fans you can reach are virtually endless.

Well, now they can. Let us introduce you to all our new distribution partners below including Shazam, Pandora, Beatport and more.

New Distribution Stores

We have added an extra 37 partner stores to our existing list of distributors, which includes 7Digital’s 32-strong network of online music stores. From now, every Spinnup release will be sent to:

**This includes the 7Digital’s distribution network of 32 online music stores and streaming services. For more information and a full list of these, click here.

All existing Spinnup releases have automatically been added to the catalogues of all our new partner stores so there is nothing you as an artist need to do to have people playing your music on Pandora in Portland, or Beatport in Bruges. We’ve done it all for you!

We’re always working to make Spinnup the best distribution service it can be for you, so stay tuned for more service updates as they come.

Premiered last Sunday during The X-Factor, the catchy and festive, feel-good bop was written especially for Sainsbury’s by Spinnup’s own Doc Brown and composed byMikis Michaelides. Avoiding hiring singers and actors, the refreshing advert marks a change in direction from previous years to extend their year-round ‘Living Well’ campaign, therefore performed by real Sainsbury’s colleagues, friends and family singing about what “help’s them to live well at Christmas time” with special guest cameos from festive favourites Ricky Tomlinson and Kermit the Frog.

Laura Boothby,Head of Broadcast Communications at Sainsbury’s, describes this ad as a “conscious move” as “living well has been at the heart of our advertising all year and there is no better time to celebrate that than at Christmas… set to a catchy festive tune!”.

With Sainsbury’s creating at least 25 different versions of the ad that will run across Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and TV, we can guarantee that this festive tune will be stuck in your head this festive season! Make sure you check the advert below and stream the track here. The song is so catchy, we even have a karaoke version for you so you can sing along this Christmas!

You’ve recorded your track, got some great artwork and have put your release out into the world – so what next? Create an amazing looking video with our friends at Rotor!

Rotor have released a new version of their video creation tool with additional features – and now it’s even easier and faster to create great music videos and video promos. The new features allow you to:

Re-arrange your video clips easily – you can drag and drop to re-arrange your video clips and they will show up in the order you choose

Use up to 64 clips for your video – that’s twice as many as before!

Add creative text anywhere you want in your video – choose ‘add overlays’ at the preview video page to try it out

Access new styles and new stock categories with 3000 free clips for you to choose from

Each Spinnup artist gets a permanent discount on all Rotor videos, just by using the code in the Offers section of their artist account. But to celebrate this new version, Rotor are offering 100 Spinnup users 25% off for the month of November. The first 100 to use the voucher code NewRotor17 will enjoy this discount.

To make life easier, Rotor have given us a quick run through on how to make a promo video:

Create a Preview

The first thing you need to do is create a video preview. This is the foundation of all videos in Rotor. Your preview helps you see what your video will look like when the clips you add are edited together and the effects (if any) are applied. It’s a simple 3-Step Process to create your preview.

1. Upload Your Music

2. Pick a Video Style

3. Add Clips

STEP 1

Upload the music for the video you want to create. This can an MP3, WAV, AAC or OGG file. Once it’s uploaded, you will see an option to Adjust Video Length. Rotor creates videos that are the same length as your music, so if you want a short promo video you just need to trim the song. You can choose from Rotor’s presets to create videos that are 15seconds, 30seconds and 60seconds long. Click and drag the green selection to choose the part of your song you want to use.

STEP 2

Now you can choose a style for your video. Rotor has a catalogue of video styles, designed by video directors and visual artists. The styles will give your video it’s looks and it’s editing style. You can choose styles based on your type of music – or you can try and test them until you find the ones that work for you. Each style comes with a preview so you can see what it does.

STEP 3

Next, you need some clips. You can add your own clips or pictures in My Uploads, then use them in any video you make. You can mix them with our Free Stock Library or you can use all of our clips. Rotor has many categories for you to choose from, which work for whatever theme you want. Each category has clips that all work together, but you can take clips from several categories to get some interesting results.

When you choose your clips, they will appear in your video in the order you have chosen them. You drag the clips to rearrange the order until you’re happy. Once you’ve finished, you can create your preview. Rotor let’s you create as many previews as you like and make as many changes as you like. It will keep each version you make, so you can always go back to the previous ones!

Add Overlays

Now that you’ve got a preview that you like you can go ahead and buy your video in whatever resolution you like – or you can add some text to promote your music, your event or you as an artist. Beside the preview is an option to Add Overlays. Click it and you’ll open up the Overlay editor. The first thing you’ll see is your video preview along with the option to choose a Template and the waveform of your music at the bottom.

You can choose an overlay template to get you started. These have some overlays already set up, such as Intro/Outro that adds text to the beginning and end of your song. Or, if you don’t want to use templates you can simply drag over the waveform to create overlays that will appear over that part of the song and video.

This opens the overlay Editor. In here you’ll see the option to:

Input Text

Change Font

Make Text Bold

Change Alignment

Change Text Size

Change Text Colour

Add/Remove Text Background Colour

There are also two style options. One for normal text and one for cutout text. Cutout shows your video through the text and blacks everything else out (it’s quite cool, try it!). Once you enter text and clicked save, you can click it on the video preview to drag it wherever you like. You can resize it and rotate it, if that’s your thing. When you’ve made some edits to your text, click Save to move on.

If you click the play button while the editor is open, the video will just play the segment where the overlay appears. You can add Layers to your overlay, so it doesn’t just have to consist of one piece of text – you can have as many as you like. Enjoy it!

Click Done when you’re finished and you’ll see the Overlay you’ve just added. You can drag on the waveform to add more, drag existing overlays to a new position in the video or copy an overlay. When you copy an overlay, it will create an exact copy that appears in the video immediately after the original. This is for convenience, in case you want pieces of text to appear one after the other. If not, you can just drag it to a new position.

Click Done again when you’re finished and that’s it! When you go back to the main preview, your overlays will appear in the video. Now you’re ready to buy your promo and start engaging your audience.

Learn more about Rotor Videos on their website, and make sure to keep your eyes on the artist offers page for more discounts from our partners!

Former Spinnup artists Vigiland have been nominated for an award at this year’s MTV EMA Awards, to be held in London on Sunday November 12, 2017!

Vigiland (Claes Remmered Persson & Otto Pettersson) were signed to Universal Music and Universal Music Publishing Sweden in 2014 after being discovered on Spinnup with their song ‘UFO’. In the time since, they have released numerous singles, gone 17 times platinum in Sweden, toured all over Europe, been streamed close to 400 million times on Spotify! And all from uploading one track on Spinnup a few years ago.

The duo have been nominated in this year’s Best Swedish Act category, alongside superstars Axwell & Ingrosso, Galantis, Tove Lo and Zara Larsson.

Voting closes at midnight (CET) on Saturday November 11, which means there is still plenty of time to vote for these guys, who we are truly proud of here at Spinnup.

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If you have a question we recommend that you first have a look at our FAQ’s. If you can’t find what you are looking for in the FAQ’s or you would like to share any thoughts or give us your feedback, please contact our Spinnup support team at Spinnup Support.